


Knocking on Doors

by worddancer



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Coping, F/M, Healing, Moving On, Sex, after the war, agnst, midwife, some agnst, using sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-07
Updated: 2015-10-07
Packaged: 2018-04-25 06:25:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4950085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/worddancer/pseuds/worddancer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charlie needs somewhere to dump all his darkness, Bass has the room to take it. She starts to heal but she keeps coming. He keeps letting her in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knocking on Doors

**Author's Note:**

> The midwife character is an original character but her history is taken from the book The Birth House. It is an amazing book that I highly reccomend. This story goes AU sometime in season 2 I'm not exactly sure where. Gene and Pricilla are both dead. The war is over.
> 
> I wanted to experiment with my writing style on this one. I tried to keep both Monroe's "voice" and Charlie's "voice" how I see them in my head. Not sure how I feel but any feed back is welcome.

“I think Miles Knows what we’re doing.” Charlie said to him as she drank her tansy tea. 

Monroe almost spit his own coffee as he stared at her across the table. She almost never talked in the morning after they’d fuck themselves into the only decent sleep they ever got. Fuck they barely spoke at all. She knocked on his door and he let her in. She poured in the darkness the war gave her and he took it all along with some of her light. (There was less darkness now.)

“No he doesn’t.” he said with finality when he could speak again, “if Miles knew I fucked his niece on every surface of this house he’d kill me.”

(Charlie knew he got bitter some mornings- especially if they were rough the night before. She sometimes thought she deserved it. After all she came here to pour all her darkness into him.)

“He saw me with the tea in the market yesterday. He didn’t ask questions. I think he knows.” 

“Well maybe he knows you’re screwing somebody but trust me he doesn’t know it's me.” Monroe said with certainty. “Did the tea work this month?”

“How should I know? I just drank it. Besides you know I always drink it the week I’m supposed to get my period anyway. I never know if it’s the tea or we’re just lucky. Marie says it’s probably both.” Charlie told him swallowing the last bit of her first cup before she poured her second. 

The pair fell back into silence. Monroe finished his coffee, Charlie finished her tea. She slipped silently out the back door and into the early morning sun. Monroe stared after her for a moment before moving to clean up the mugs. For a moment he stared at the remains of Charlie’s tea. He could see flecks of the herbs she drank swimming in the backwash. 

He remembered when the lights first went out. The first few years before things began to organize. How many people got pregnant, how many got deadly infections from birth control that couldn’t be removed, how many died in labor or miscarriage. How many died in general. Once all of the pharmacies had been raided, all the pills gone? People were left with nothing.

It was funny to think that a world that once mocked holistic healers now depended on them. Now a herbalist was one of the most respected people in a community and anyone who could practice midwifery was in business for life. 

The town in northern Louisiana they had settled in after defeating the Patriots had a herbalist who was also the midwife. Marie was a tiny woman in her early sixties full of spit and fire. Her family was originally from Canada- Nova Scotia. Her grandmother had been a midwife who passed the training on to her daughter, who passed it to hers, who passed it to Marie. 

“None of us are connected by biology but we all got the same training. Grandma Dora was trained by a Catholic woman in her Protestant town- that’s where I got my name. She birthed and adopted my mama- Wrennie, My mama adopted me from a teenage girl who was pregnant before she was ready and left without options. But we all got Grandma Dora’s training. I also went to school back when the lights were on, practiced for almost twenty years.” Marie explained to the newcomers when they went to her for herbs to fight an infection that settled in Rachel's cut arm. “I take care of most things around here, I catch babies and cure what I can. I have a greenhouse out back that keeps me with fresh supplies in all seasons.”

Six months after they settled in Charlie started knocking on Monroe’s door. He went to see Marie the next day.

“So the big bad general needs to know how to not get pregnant? Something you hid from everyone?” Marie smiled at him as she reached for the top cupboard. 

“That I’m a chronic womanizer? Marie, those rumors are true. Hence my being here.” Monroe smiled. The further he got from the war the easier it was to fake his smiles. Pretend to be his old self- before the war, before the lights out, before the Republic. 

“Knock that sass boyo- we learned to smell bull shit early in my family. I don’t talk about what people come to see me for. I’ll give you a month of tea. Have her drink two mugs every week right before she’s supposed to start bleeding. Next month have her come and see me instead. I won’t tell nobody nothing. It’s not my business what a woman does with her body. I just help her once she makes her choices. If the tea doesn’t work I can take care of that too.” Marie bustled around her shop front putting pinches of herbs into two packets. 

“Alright the tansy is strong tasting so I put some rose and peppermint in there to help balance the taste. Remember two cups right before she bleeds.”

“Yes ma’am.” Monroe reached in his pockets for diamonds and handed her a few.

“I also accept trade. If you’re willing I have a pile of wood that needs to chopped before the month ends.”

“I can do that.”

“Good the axe is out back. Chop the wood and I’ll get you two months of herbs. After that we’ll work something out.” 

Monroe spent the rest of the afternoon methodically chopping and stacking wood in the midwifes back yard. The physical labor was good for him. It kept the demons away for a short time. That’s why he used to box. The combination of the physical exertion and the pain kept the demons at bay. It never lasted long but if he drank enough, sweated enough and fucked enough he could sometimes forget for a bit. That’s why he’d let Charlie in the night before. She’d been shacking up with a nice farm boy named Sean outside of town. Miles had been bitching about it for weeks. Apparently Charlie had been spending half her nights out there. 

He’d been surprised to see her. Surprised when she pushed him down on the couch and straddled him. Surprised to taste whiskey strong on her breath. Surprised when she bit down in the skin between his shoulder and neck. Surprised when she ground her hips against his. Surprised when she whispered in his ear.

“Fuck me till I forget.” 

He wasn’t surprised that he responded. He’d seen Charlie truly drunk before. She got cuddly and vulnerable like she never allowed herself to be sober. She rarely allowed herself to be drunk. This wasn’t the whiskey talking. The whiskey on her lips mingled with the whiskey on his as his hands found their way up to her hips. He gripped her tight and began to move her hips over his own jeans slowly coaxing himself to erection. He kissed her back and bit down gently on her lip. She responded by biting him back harder. 

That’s how their night went. Coaxing each other to the edge again and again. He met her push for push and she pushed him further. There was nothing gentle in her that night. He understood and he took it and gave it back. 

They pretended that he moaned her name (Shelly) when he came on her back and that she screamed his name (Sean) the first (second)(third) time he pushed her over the edge. 

He didn’t know if she’d come back but he’d have the tea for her if she did. He didn’t know or care what she did with her farm boy but he didn’t want to place the burden of his kid in her body.

He wasn’t surprised when a few days later she knocked on his door again. When they finished he told her about the tea. She took it in her hands before turning and placing it the cupboard. 

“I’m not due for my period until next week.” she told him. 

They didn’t speak much after that. Not the next time she knocked, or the time after that. A week after the second time she knocked she stayed the night. In the morning he made coffee and she made tea. 

One month later she stopped seeing the nice boy with the farm on the outside of town. 

Two months later he stopped locking his door.

Three months later Charlie started training with Marie. Monroe still chopped her wood every month. 

“The girl has too much dark in her right now. I just want to give her a little light. None of my own babies are around and her own mother isn’t up for the task. Besides, my family's knowledge isn’t meant to be passed by blood. Grandma Dora was barren, so was my mama. I’m the only woman in my family to birth a baby of her own and none of mine lived past 15.” Marie explained when Monroe asked. “Grandma Dora said Ms. Marie was the same way. She could catch everyone’s babies just not her own.”

Monroe couldn’t deny the woman was right. Rachel had fallen into a deep and dark depression since the death of her father and the end of the war. Miles was too caught up in caring for her to be of much help to his niece (daughter). Connor had run off somewhere. Aaron was grieving the death of his wife. There just wasn’t anybody left that Charlie knew aside from Monroe and he couldn’t help her heal.

He could just put some of her darkness next to his own.

4 months and they still pretended not to hear when the other called someone else’s name (Shelly, Emma, Nora once- never Rachel) (Jason, Sean- never Connor). They pretended that they didn’t hear the other moan out their name either (Charlotte, Sebastian). 

5 months and Charlie would come over every other night like clock work. She’d stay most of them too. They still didn’t talk much. The morning she drank her tea (every twenty eight days) she’d leave for the rest of the week until her period stopped. Monroe pretended he didn’t miss her. 

He also pretended he didn’t hope she missed him too. 

6 months and he hardly ever whispered someone else’s name (still Shelly, always Shelly). He hardly ever woke up to her crying softly next to him now. Sometimes he still woke in the middle of the night with a nightmare of his own but he almost always saw her sleeping peacefully. 

He could feel the darkness leaving her. He could feel her healing. 

He knew he was a selfish bastard when that made him sad. After all when she finished healing she’d stop knocking on his door. 

(He didn’t think he’d ever stop letting her in.)

~&~

Sean was a nice boy. A solid man even. This little part of Louisiana had been ignored by Patriots and Texans alike. That’s why they came here. Somewhere that was as untouched by the sins of the past as they could get.

Sean was too nice. There was no fire in him. He was all earth. Steady and unnerving, he never flinched from his task. He was kind, polite and helped them set up when the first arrived. She thought she needed that. So she slowly let him attempt to woo her. After a few months of walks, dinners and nights having a drink or two at the bar she followed him into his bed. He was sweet and he was gentle and she hated it. 

Their sex didn’t chase the nightmares away. It didn’t leave her tired and aching and desperate for release. 

It was nice.

It just wasn’t enough. He was too good, too clean, too nice. 

She hated herself a little bit for thinking that. 

It was true though. She couldn't lose herself in him. He was a nice, clean boy who was untouched by the blood and war her skin was soaked in. She couldn’t clean herself without making him dirty.

One night she sat in town bar thinking about it all. The blood, the war, the number of lives she took, and how she didn’t mind that she took them in the first place. She did what she had to do and she didn’t (couldn’t) regret it. The thoughts churned and roiled in her stomach and fought desperately for a release. She didn’t want to go to Sean, she knew it wouldn’t help. She’d tried countless times before. 

She tossed back her second whiskey and was about to order her third when an idea stuck her.

There was one person in town who wasn’t related to her and just as dark- darker even. She paid her tab for the two drinks and headed over to the small house he claimed on the outskirt of town. She knocked heavily on his door and hoped he was awake enough (and sober enough) to help her quiet her demons. 

She wasn’t surprised he let her in. They’d come close to this before- traveling together back from New Las Vegas. She wasn’t surprised that his breath tasted like whiskey. She wasn’t surprised that he gripped her hips tightly and let her ride him. 

She was surprised she had to coax him to go harder. She was surprised he tried to be gentle at first. 

She wasn’t surprised when he gasped out someone else's name.

She wasn’t surprised when she said Sean’s. 

She was (almost) surprised when it worked.

She was more surprised when the next time she knocked on his door- after he let her in, after he chased away her demons- he handed her the tea. It’s thoughtful and caring of him. Sean always expected her to just watch her cycle and make sure he pulled out. Her grandfather hadn’t known herbal remedies so she never learned any. It was nice to know that someone was helping her look out for herself. She didn’t have that right then. 

Of course he might have also just wanted to make sure she didn’t get knocked up with his bastard.

She didn’t think that was it though. Or at least she didn’t think it was all that.

She put the tea in the cupboard. She decided to come back. 

The first time she stayed over they slept on separate sides of the bed. She had wiped her thighs and stomach clean but the bed still smelt of their sex. The smell gathered between them and created a wall that neither of them wanted to cross. 

The second time she stayed over the wall seemed a little thinner. 

The third night it was thinner still.

By the second month of whatever the fuck they were doing the wall was gone. She woke with her limbs wrapped in his. His hand often tangled in her hair just as hers tangled on his chest. It made her smile to think that the man who was once the most feared man was a huge cuddler. Of course she had led war clans and fought alongside the two generals and she was a cuddler too. 

“I need something to do.” she commented off hand one morning as she found her clothes scattered across the house. The night before had been quick, fast and hard. It had quieted her demons to the point where the nightmares hadn’t woken once. In the morning though- she was restless, she wanted to move. She wanted to do more than just take care of her mother and live with her memories.

“What about Marie? She’s always making noise about needing somebody.”

“The midwife?”

“Yeah, I gotta chop her wood later today. Come with.”

She thought about it for a moment. It might be nice to learn how to give life instead of just take it.

“Alright.”

“Your lover talks too much.” the little old lady told her looking her up and down, “he’s right though. I do need a hand. I’ll warn you girl though family tradition follows we Rare’s can catch all babies but our own. You’re not family and I don’t know if I believe the tradition but Grandma never had any, Mama never had any and none of mine lived.”

“I don’t believe in ghost stories.” 

“Good, let's get started. I’m not getting any younger and we have to check on Ms. Mable down the road. She’s about six months along.”

She was surprised when she liked learning from Marie. She was more surprised when she was good at it. Between Helen and her grandfather she’d picked up a fair amount of field medicine. Marie’s teaching fell right into what she already knew.

“I got my training from Mama, Grandma Dora and Georgetown. Before it all went to hell I had my RN degree and my masters in midwifery. Not that that means much now, either way I’ll teach you what I know. Make sure you grab the peppermint- Mable’s been getting headaches with this one.”

After awhile she started to realize helping heal others was helping her heal herself.

She still knocked on his door though. She needed somewhere to pour what darkness was left inside her. She needed to make more space for Marie’s teachings to fill with light.

She knew she was using him.

She knew he was using her to drown out his own demons too.

She didn’t know what was stranger- how they both called out others names, or when they called out each others. She was so used to hearing someone else's name (Shelly, Emma, once Nora) and even after she left Sean she still called his name (or Jason). 

She was more surprised when he started calling her name (Charlotte, always Charlotte) and she started calling his (Sebastian, only Sebastian). That was almost scary, almost intimate. When they woke tangled in each other's arms they could blame their sleeping bodies looking for warmth. They didn’t have that excuse while awake. 

Three months into her training and five months inside him she moved out of her mom and uncles (fathers?) house. 

“Mable is delivering soon, I need to be able to find you. Your man is just down the road not clear across town. Makes sense for you to stay here when you’re not there.” Marie told her bluntly. 

“Wake up, Mable’s oldest sent for us. Baby's coming now.” Marie shook her awake not a week after she moved into the spare room.

They walked down the path with thirteen year old Evan.

“When did her contractions start?” Marie asked.

“An hour ago. She waited a bit before sending me off to get you. Wanted to get the others ready. Dad’s taking them to Ms. Martha’s.” 

“Good, they won’t know why Mama’s not acting like Mama. Best to get them out of the way so Mama can do her work.” Marie nodded.

She wasn’t sure she was ready to help with a birth but it didn’t look like she had a choice. When they arrived at the house Evan quickly left to follow his siblings. Mabel's sister had come to be with her though and currently held a cool cloth to her head.

“Charlie dear I need you to go grab some hot water and a cloth. Make sure it’s a soft one if you can find it.”

“Good girl, now hold it tight against her vagina, we don’t want her to tear. Alright, good. Take it away for a moment, feel there? She’s dilating quickly. Soon it’ll be time to push. Get on your knees Mabel, Sarah- give her your shoulders to hold, good job. Alright Charlie when she starts to push you’re going to feel the baby’s head. Just guide the little one out, Mable’s doing all the hard work.” Marie orchestrated them all like a well rehearsed band. Only a few hours later the pair was walking back to their house. 

“How’d catching that baby feel?” Marie asked.

“It felt good, like I was doing something good.” she confessed.

“Good, you got a lot of good in you girl. Like I told your man first time he came to me. Women make their own choices, I just help them once they do.”

“I don’t think he’s my man.”

“What else would you call him, unless you’re both sleeping somewhere else when you’re not at home.”

“No we’re not.”

“Well you might want to actually talk to the poor fool. Don’t forget to grab some more tea.”

Four months into training and six months into Sebastian and she felt better. Not healed, she didn’t know if she’d ever be healed but she felt better. 

Still she knocked on his door.


End file.
